Poisoned Letters 1

Unexpected writer

'All right Harry?'
'Good luck Harry.'
'You'll do great!'
'Make us proud.'

The morning of a Quidditch match was always the same; pats on the back, encouragement, jokes. You'd have thought he'd be used to it by now but he was still nervous before his games, he still got the feeling that he would let down the team.
It was lovely weather for it though, the sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, it was possibly the last day of summer.
By the time he and Ron got down to the great hall they saw Hermione was already there leaning over a copy of the school newspaper (which had started up the year before) shaking with laughter, which made the boys smile.
'Hey Herm, whatcha reading?' Ron asked as he and Harry sat down beside her.
'Oh its this report on the on coming Quidditch match, the guy who wrote it is fantastic! It much have been written yesterday, your in it Harry,' she giggled again, 'don't look at the name at the bottom until the end, just read it.'
She past over the paper to the boys and they began to read.

Everyone's favourite game!

Yes! It's that time again when 75 of the school don gold and red and the other 25 grumble to each other about beating them finally and how much they'll enjoy wiping the smug smile off of the oppositions face's.
That's right, the all mighty Gryffindor Slytherin match.
I don't exactly know why they've asked me write this as I will be playing tomorrow and surely I could brainwash you all into supporting our team. Yeah, like that would happen.
I am writing this superb and accurate account at the dinner table as I wouldn't sit in our common room if you paid me and my desk back at the shack (or "room") is at this moment in time covered in bottles of water (Caledonian spring, of course) and extra divination homework, why I took that class I don't know as professor Trelawney has declared that she scenes an evil presence around me and I'm starting to get paranoid.
But enough about that!
So yeah, tomorrow the Slytherin are once again going to get their arses kicked, as I am not even going to bother to try and catch the snitch, there is no point. I might take a book up with me, something by Jane Austin perhaps (if you have not read pride and prejudice, SHAME ON YOU, It is brilliant). Lord Nelsons trousers! Harry Potter (and suddenly the reader takes interest) just walked into the great hall and, it appears that not only has he forgotten his robes and is wearing baggy jeans and a two-t shirt combo (I knew it! I knew he'd be a Mosher! God damn it people, can we say, INDIVIDUALITY?) But it also seems that not even the great Harry potter can get away with combining ORANGE and RED, ah! And the baggys are aqua, people, aqua.
Tut tut.
Thank you for proving once again that Gryffindors have no sense of style.
Hmmmmm
Oh yes! The point of this.
The game will start at eleven am sharp, be there or be…an interesting person and do something, dare I say it, DIFFERENT!
Yours,
D. Malfoy.

Harry just stared at the two words at the bottom of the page in shock; Ron was the first to speak.
'Malfoy?' he gasped, 'MALFOY wrote THIS? But how? Why? He's completely dissing his house! What's wrong with him, do you think he's sick?'
Harry turned to look at the Slytherin table and sure enough the blond was sitting there at the far end checking his nails. That were probably immaculate as always, painted black or dark purple and long, not as long as a girl might wear them, but most likely longer than Harry's. Even from where he sat Harry could see the thick dark line of eyeliner the boy was wearing and the shadow on top. Harry had to hand it to him, Malfoy took to the gothic look like a fish took to water, it was good on him, and he didn't go too O. T. T with it like some did. Malfoy looked up and saw that Harry was staring at him and gave a sarcastic little wave, he mouthed over 'take my advice' and nodded earnestly, he meant about the orange and red t-shirt affair. Harry had to stop himself from smiling, he knew it had been a bad idea, but they had been his only clean two, and he had really and truly forgotten to grab his school robes on his way out.
He turned back to Ron and Hermione and saw that Ron had piled about 20 slices of toast on his plate 'Ron I'm not hungry.' he said, tipping the load onto his friends own plate.
'Darn, and here's me hoping you'd not notice and eat away happily.' Ron scowled and bit into a slice.
'Don't you eat to much ether, Ronald Weasly, the last thing I need to happen is my new keeper to be throwing up when he should be keeping goal.'
Ron rolled his eyes, 'yes sir.'
Harry turned to Hermione who was reading the rest of the paper and tutting over something ''mione, do we have any classes this morning?'
'Only one, potions, so watch no one poisons you, god, would you look at this, another goblin rebellion going to begin soon, that's just what we need right in the middle of a war!'

The first thing they noticed as they walked into the potions classroom was that Snape wasn't there, but the rest of the Slytherins and Gryffindors were, the second thing they noticed was that the Slytherins had blocked Malfoy out of their group, but Malfoy ether hadn't noticed or didn't care as he was combing out his hair and measuring his fringe's length on his face, when he pulled it down it got just past his top lip. He looked up when the three came in then looked back at the silver strands between his fingers, Harry couldn't remember when he'd noticed that Malfoy didn't scowl at them or indeed, do anything nasty at all, probably since the start of this term, Sixth year, what he had noticed though, was that Malfoy was very often alone and had seemed to drop in the popularity rates with the Slytherins.
They sat down at their desks and got their books out of their bags, Hermione gave them each a note just as Snape stormed into the classroom.
'Right class! Pay attention, today we are going to make a very simple potion, that should take no more than ten minutes to make, therefore if anyone gets it wrong or takes longer than said time I will deduct twenty points from their house ARE YOU LISTENING LONGBOTTOM! This potion will make the drinker invisible but we are going to dilute it so that you will only be a little transparent for a couple of minutes, I cant have a bunch of invisible sixth formers running around creating havoc, can anyone tell me what this potion is called?' Only Hermione and Malfoy stuck their hands in the air, though Malfoy didn't so much stick up his hand than put it forward in front of him so it looked like he was pointing at Snape, 'yes, mister Malfoy?'
'Elbisivni.'
'Yes, well done, ten points.'
'Maybe it would be better to award those points to the Gryffindorks.' a Slytherin muttered beside him making the others in his house laugh.
'What was that Brooks?' Snape snapped
'Nothing sir.'
'Right then, copy down these notes and we'll get to work.
There was a scrabble to get Quills and Harry finally read the note he'd been holding in his hand:

Harry,
Why do you think the ferrets fallen from grace? I reckon because his gone Goth and they've freaked on him, write back,
Love Hermione
Xxx

Harry dipped his quill into the ink then scribbled back quickly:

I don't know, maybe he's decided that being a git is boring or something? What do you think Brooks meant by awarding points to Gryffindor instead?
Harry

He gave it to Ron who gave Hermione his note and what must have been his own reply, he must have written roughly the same as Harry because she turned around and shrugged at them both.
Oh well, Harry thought, he's a big boy now, he can look after himself.

Their potions took little more than ten minutes and soon they were all nicely transparent, chatting away about who looked most like a ghost.
Ron had laughed himself half to death when he saw himself, claiming that it must be great being a ghost, Hermione had told him not to say that anywhere near Mertal and he started to laugh all over again, saying that they should all go visit her and live in her toilet for a while, Harry said he'd pass.
Now they where all just sitting talking, and Harry was only half listening to what his friends where saying, something about why they needed to do homework (Hermione) and why homework was pointless (Ron) his eyes drifted over to the Slytherin table where they where all scowling at each others see through form, Malfoy however, was looking at his hands with a bemused expression on his face, suddenly he stood up and walked towards the door, Snape looked up from the exams he was marking
'Where are you off to Mr Malfoy?' he asked him, raising an eyebrow.
'Simple sir, I'm going to jump of the astronomy tower.' Malfoy stated and Snape's mouth twitched into what might have been a smile
'Dare I ask why?'
'Well I'm hopping I will become a ghost, eternal youth, eternal life, in an ironic kind of way and to top it off, this cool transparent thing, years from now, when people ask me how I died, I can make up elaborate death stories, involving love, or possibly murder.' Malfoy said this like it was the most common thing in the world, to hurtle yourself from a building just so you could become a ghost.
'Actually,' Hermione piped up, 'you might not become a ghost, its quite rare for that to happen.'
Malfoy glared at her, for the first time this year, but here was something about it, it was like how Ron might glare at her, no spite behind it.
'You always spoil my fun! Remind me to haunt you.' he stalked back to his table and threw himself onto his chair.
'Still the king of strops I see,' Harry heard Ron mutter beside him, 'knock him off his broom Harry, maybe he'll get his wish.' Ron said darkly, and Harry laughed, though he didn't really think it would be a good idea to kill Malfoy, somehow he couldn't see how he would get away with it, Malfoys father was sure to notice his sons absence at the end of term.
'Right class, put away your books, class is over.' Snape said sharply, the class cheered.
Ron and Harry looked at each other: it was Quidditch time.

The teams walked out to meet each other, and Harry and Malfoy shook hands, Being that the Slytherin team captain didn't want to touch Harry, Malfoy had snarled 'oh grow up' before grabbing Harry's hand and shaking it for his stroppy team captain.
Harry saw two silver rings on Malfoy's hand, one had a crest on it that could only be the Malfoys; it had a snake with wings on it destroying what was unmistakably a primitive muggle village. The other had a 'S' on it that was studded with what looked like small diamonds, 'S' for Slytherin, Harry thought. Malfoys nails were painted black with an emerald green streak down the middle to match his Quidditch robes, they were also incredibly neat and all the same size, Harry suddenly became very ashamed of his own short bitten ones.
'Right teams, mount your brooms' Madam Hooch called, 'lets have a nice, clean game.'
Harry kicked off, and closed his eyes as the wind hit his face, sending shivers down his spine, this was what he was good at, he thought, not books or spells or potions, but flying. He opened his eyes and looked around for the snitch, it was no where to be found just now so his eyes returned to the game, Slytherin had possession right now, their captain was grinning as he sped towards the Gryffindor goals, if he scored the first points in the game there would be no end to the taunting… Ron caught it at the last minute and Harry gave him a little whoop. He tossed it over to Lucy Springfield, a little lithe second year girl who was faster than the wind once she got going. She was racing up to the other end, yellow hair streaming out behind her, then she dodged the keeper and scored Gryffindor's first goal of the match, the crowd cheered and she gave them a little loop de loop. Harry laughed at her and waved, she blushed a little then raced after the Quaffle again. Draco looked up in vague amusement when he heard the crowd go off, then went back to his book; there were only so many times you could watch your team getting it before you got majorly bored of the whole event, and anyway, this was a good chapter of P and P, a trivial little boys game wasn't going to get in the way of… a shadow fell over his page, he looked up and there was his captain glaring at him.
'…Hello…' he said, trying to avoid the murderous look in the captain's eyes
'You do realise we're one hundred poi-' the crowd cheered again, 'one hundred and ten points behind! Stop reading that trash you queer an start looking for the damn snitch!'
'It is not trash, I will not look for that yellow golf ball with wings and I am not 'queer' I am eccentric and misunderstood, the reason we are so much behind, and I do use the term 'we' loosely, is because your fellows cannot move their lazy arse's fast enough to catch up with a bunch of second and third years, now, piss of, your making me flush and its not a good look.'
His captain glared and raised his hand as if to strike him, instead he ripped the book out of the smaller boys hands and threw it down to the ground, Draco glared at his back as he flew away.
Harry had watched that little scene with interest, he hadn't heard what the two had been saying but it had looked quite fierce, and when the seventh year boy's hand had came up Harry was ready to catch Malfoy if he had been knocked out. Malfoy turned to look at him now and saw him staring at him; he waved and smiled in a stressed out air hostess kind of way. Harry saw it as if it was slow motion, just as Malfoys hand opened up to wave a little shot of gold flew into it and the fingers instinctively closed around it, Malfoy turned and looked at his hand, then gave quite a comic double take, he then brought it down and flew over to Harry, grabbing the dark haired boys hand and pushing what was unmistakably the snitch into it.
'Think this is yours… so that's what they look like at close range'
Harry looked at him in shock, so did the rest of the players on the pitch, so did all the spectators, everyone had seen what had happened, and no one could seem to really believe it, least of all Malfoy, by the look on his face.
Suddenly the Slytherins erupted and the team hugged each other, though no one congratulated Malfoy. He didn't really seem to notice as he was still looking at the thing in Harry's hand with scepticism.
'That isn't right, it was a fluke, demand a rematch' he muttered.
'Are you mad? You just won, the first game you've one against me and you want a rematch?"
"But I didn't win, not really, it was a fluke, twist of fate, whatever…its not right" Malfoy looked at him, and for a brief moment Harry saw pain in the blond's eyes, "I'm going to get hell for this, it was bad enough just the Slytherin."
Then he left Harry's side and flew down to the ground to grab his book, before turning to the Slytherin changing rooms with a beaten, crushed look.

"And then he said 'I'm going to get hell for this, it was bad enough just the Slytherins.' Harry finished and looked at Hermione and Ron.
"Well then he's noticed himself that they've all abandoned him" Hermione stated "but we still don't know why… here's the deal, in potions next week if one of us has to go partners with him-"
"I hope you are not suggesting we play therapist to ferret." Ron said blankly, staring her out.
"Not at all, but next week we're working on a truth potion, and it be a good time to ask him questions about it, see if its anything important."
"Oh come on, he's a sixteen year old boy, he's probably not got the right designer trainers to be part of the gang any more, or it's the fact he's gone Goth all of a sudden," Ron said exasperatedly, "what do you think its about!"
"You forget we are in the middle of a war and Draco's father is high up on the dark side! Has it crossed your mind that he may have done something to disappoint or betray them? Sixteen is the age that you can receive the dark mark, and am I the only one to notice that when he's rolled up his sleeves that there's nothing there?"
Ron looked at her in silence; he looked at Harry and then back to his girlfriend.
"Didn't think about that, sorry," he muttered looking down.
Hermione smiled "that is evident but when have you ever thought about anything?"
Harry grinned as Hermione patted Ron's head sympathetically.
"Right," Harry sat up, "we have our plan, but how do we get it into action?"

Draco sighed, it was no good, he had screwed up royally where Harry was concerned, actually asking for a rematch, if that wasn't the stupidest thing he'd ever done then it was saying he was getting hassle from his housemates.
He sighed again and looked into the mirror properly.
What do you see?
His father had asked him that on his first day of school.
He had answered simply. Myself.
Really Draco? Will I tell you what I see?
Yes.
I see a frightened little boy who doesn't know where he wants to go in his life, who's terrified about his future and living up to everyone's expectations, a little boy who has never had to think for himself before and now he has to go to school where there will be no one to hold his hand. Are you scared?
Yes.
Don't be, you are my son, and the name Malfoy counts for something, you will never be on your own.
Oh how wrong his father had been, he was alone now was he not? In his little room, even Pansy had abandoned him, and he hadn't expected that, you don't simply abandon someone you claim to love did you? He wouldn't know; he had never been in love.
He looked at his lined eyes, the black above them, and smiled. He couldn't take it off now, the make up, it was his mask, and he felt vulnerable without it. The last time he had seen himself without it was in the summer holidays: When he was still able to take it off at night, he had looked so young he had shocked himself, so helpless and exposed. With it on no one got in his way, even without Crabbe and Goyle he was left alone. With it on he was cold and cruel looking and no one bothered him. That was the way it was supposed to be, Malfoy's did not have feelings.
He sighed once more before turning and looking at the unused paper on his bed. He would have to write it now and run to the great hall to give it to the editor, it had to be in by nine and it was already six thirty. Couldn't let Davey down could he?

When Harry, Ron and Hermione entered the hall Malfoy was all ready there, sitting at the very end of his table scribbling away at most likely his next article. David Lorry, Ravenclaw and the Editor of the school paper, was standing over him saying something, Malfoy said something back that made David laugh and pat him on the head, (which Malfoy took surprisingly well) before turning back to his own table.
"I knew it," Ron said flatly beside him, "he's sleeping his way into power."
"Don't be so crude," Hermione snapped back at him, "go eat something, you only get like this when you're hungry."
"Not where Malfoy's concerned." He answered before biting into a piece of French bread laden with mayonnaise.
"That is disgusting," Harry said with a shudder, "how can you eat that stuff?"
"Easily, want some?" Ron grinned as he waved the bread near Harry's face, who tilted back on his chair to avoid it.
"No, thank you, I'd rather eat the giant squid whole while it was still alive."
"They do that in some cultures," Hermione mumbled, "but obviously not giant squid."
"Way to much information 'mione." Ron grumbled, helping himself to more bread, "where do you learn this stuff anyway?"
"I just pick it up."
Harry felt his eyes once again drift over to Malfoy. He was prodding his plate with mistrust, before finally pushing it away from himself and getting up to leave. On his way past the Ravenclaws he handed David his report and whispered something in the boys ear that made him grin.
Draco crossed the great Hall and scooted out of the door quickly, Harry watched as five Slytherins got up to leave as well, all looking deadly determined. He nudged Hermione, who shrugged.
"Do we follow?" he whispered.
"Can we afford to if they get nasty?"
They looked at each other, Ron suddenly got up. "Come on then, we've got a case to solve." They did look for them, they really tried to find Malfoy in time, but they couldn't, they looked everywhere and the boy wasn't found. It was two hours later when Colin Creevey told them Malfoy had a run in with his housemates, and by that time the damage had been done; the boy was black and blue. And it was clear to everyone who had half a brain that Draco Malfoy was an outcast, and he was on his own.

review cause this story used to have loads of reviews, and now it doesnt, even if its just to say hi! love and stuff, Elly xxx